American Dreams

Room with a Bath - Part 1 of 2

by Rudolph James

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NEW ORLEANS - Having a convenient place to piss in the middle of the night is very important. I had lost my apartment and was moving around in dead-end hotels. Another waiter at the restaurant I was working in suggested a rooming house on Rampart Street.

"Hey, man," he said. "It's only eighty bucks a week. That's a lot cheaper than what you're paying for them hotels up on St. Charles Ave."

The idea sounded good to me. That was a lot cheaper, even though meeting the manager of rooming house was a little strange. This manager apparently ran several houses around the French Quarter and was well known amongst the unsettled. I called him from work to confirm our appointment.

"Are you sure you have a room for me?" I asked.

"Yeah, Jay," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"Because I'm checking out of the hotel I'm in tomorrow morning and coming straight there after work."

I was listening for something in his voice to make me feel secure about this move. It was close to Mardi Gras weekend and rooms were hard to find. I didn't want to give up my room at the hotel and then have no place to go.

The rooming house manager assured me, "Check outtah the hotel, Jay. You work with one of my tenants. That's good enough for me. I'll hold the room for you."

Then he went on to say how I could pay daily rates until I came up with a substantial amount of money and we could move to weekly rates. It sounded good to me.

The next morning I checked out of the hotel and went to work. After work I had my first meeting with Sammy, the house manager.

He shows me my room. It's huge. It's half the size of my old apartment. It has a TV in the corner. Big deal. A sofa. A desk. A huge bed. Nice. A refrigerator. Very nice.

We sit down at the desk in the room. He shows me a one page rental agreement. I don't read it. I show him my I.D. He doesn't look at it.

"I trust you," he says.

He starts showing me how to operate the television set.

"Now, Jay," he says. "You're lucky. This TV got cable. Only there's no button to turn it on with. It's broken."

Good, I thought. Let's forget about the TV

He walks over to the boarded-up windows.

"Now look over here, Jay," he says. "Just take this plug and plug it in."

The TV came on. It was loud. I was looking for the volume control. He showed me where it was. I lowered the volume to zero. Next was detailed instructions on how to change the channels.

"You always gottah push two buttons, Jay," he's telling me. "Never just one. If you want to watch, say, channel 35, then you have to push three, five. If you want to watch channel 33, push three, three. Now!" He made it sound like something important was coming up.

"Now! If you want to watch, say, channel 4," he says, "you can't just push four. Remember? Two buttons. Zero, four."

Thanks. I got it. You just taught me the Base Ten system.

I wanted to ask him where the light switch was but I was afraid he'd go into a dissertation on Ohms Law. He tells me there are only two other tenants in t he building. Both are here on the first floor, he says. They are renovating the upper floors, he explains. They are trying to clean up the reputation of the building. He goes into the unwritten rules of the house.

"We don't like strangers coming and going around here," he says. "But if you have a girlfriend, or if you're out one night and you get lucky, well, I can turn around look the other way.

He turns around and looks the other way. I turn around with him. There is an elderly woman standing in the doorway. She is wearing a bathrobe, bedroom slippers and a nightcap. Sammy introduces us. She is a retired school teacher or bookstore owner or something to do with books and lives down the hall.

She holds her robe closed with one hand and reaches out and touches me with the other. She turns and shuffles off to her room.

"Come on, Jay. I'll show you the bathroom down the hall," says Sammy.

I hear a network of locks go into action as we pass the old lady's room. The bathroom is only remodeled. Not even painted yet. Empty. Some of the old lady's toiletries lay around. Sammy's talking to me in the bathroom and everything is echoing.

"Now! You have to flush the toilet when you're through. Oh! Make sure you lock the door when you're in here so no one walks in on you."

He was serious. He actually felt he had to tell me all this. I listened. I was tired. I knew I had to go through the orientation process. How much do you want, Sammy? I was thinking. I'll pay you. Give me the key and go away.

We were back in the room going over more rules again.

"Now, Jay, this is where I'm really strict."

Please. How could that be?

"You have to make your bed in the morning. And do your laundry once a week. And don't forget to wash your bedding."

This guy's out of his mind, I thought. Not just strange like I was told. Nuts.

"I see you smoke," he was saying. "Make sure you use the ashtrays. I'll be in once a week to do general cleaning. Of course I won't come in when you're home."

It's already too many rules for me to live by. Besides, I do all that stuff on my own anyway ‚ cleaning clothes and flushing toilets, etc. He felt he had to tell me these things. I figured his concern was indicative of the type of tenants who gave the place the reputation he was trying to forget. But here I am. Rooms are hard to find during carnival and I already gave up my room at the hotel.

It was Saturday. I gave Sammy twenty bucks. He was not going to be around on the weekend. He was going to busy with his other buildings. Making sure his other tenants flush the toilets.

He told me he'd be back Monday night to collect for Sunday and Monday. We would do that until I came up with a substantial part of a week's rent. We shook hands on that and started to walk out of the building together. Sammy showed me his office.

"Now I got a friend who stays in my office."

The second tenant. The old lady and now the friend. He told me what his friend did for a living but I don't remember what he said. I don't pay attention to that stuff. I don't care what people do for a living. I said good-bye to Sammy and went back to my room and unplugged the TV from the wall.

---

There was a bar on Rampart Street two blocks over from my room. The bar was a drag queen pick-up joint. I Ws sitting in there after work one night drinking some beers and wishing I could get my room back at the hotel. I knew I would find any "luck" of the kind Sammy had mentioned in this bar. I also knew there was no chance of getting my room back at the hotel, either. It was Mardi Gras weekend in New Orleans and I was sure they had rented the room by now. I would be stuck with Sammy until carnival was over. I didn't feel too good about that.

Then I started to feel not too good for all the queens I was looking at. They didn't know that Sammy was out to wipe their reputation from existence. After enough beers, I went back to my room and got into bed.

I lay there staring at the ceiling and thinking:

No, Sammy, you'll never change the reputation of this building. The walls are mumbling with stories of years of prostitution, drugs, drag queens rolling the unenlightened. The windows are boarded up but I can still hear hustlers making their moves outside those windows.

The door to my room locked with a padlock from the outside, but the inside was held shut by only a hook-and-eye latch. I didn't feel safe there. I have to get out tomorrow! I thought.

And, Sammy, what's the story with the plastic, one gallon container of Kentwood water and the water on the dresser by the mirror?

There were three more Kentwood bottles by the refrigerator but they were all empty.

You said you cleaned the room before I came. You did. It was spotless. But you left those water bottles behind! Why?

I wondered about that until I fell asleep.


(THE CONCLUSION next week.)